Conventional electronic messaging systems such as email, newsgroups, bulletin boards and such are an integral part of the modern workplace. For a number of tasks these communication tools offer unmatched efficiency. Conventional messaging systems all ultimately employ one of two basic models of communication that pre-date any electronic form: the post office and bulletin board. For a wide range of “subject matter-based” occupations, these communication models are failing to fully enable users to efficiently and effectively conduct subject matter exchanges.
Two Basic Models of Communication: Post Office or Bulletin Board
By emulating the post office model of communication, email offers an unmatched level of efficiency for basic information sharing tasks (e.g. document distribution) as well as one-touch response tasks such as request for status, request for information, and request for confirmation. On the other hand, by bringing the bulletin board model of communication into an electronic context, newsgroups offers an unmatched level of efficiency for subject matter based information sharing tasks based on communal interest (i.e. a Java newsgroup). With extensions to email to incorporate mailing list distribution capabilities (i.e. a project distribution list), email can provide advantages on par with newsgroups for subject matter based information sharing albeit with the caveat that such an extension can lead to more email clutter.
Other tasks where messaging systems are heavily employed are subject matter exchanges—an effort where two or more parties exchange subject matter expertise often for some mutual benefit. While nothing precludes these exchanges from taking place outside of messaging systems, messaging systems make it possible for the parties to be dispersed and to participate on their own time (time-shifting).
Thread functionality provides support for the “continual conversation”, and has been incorporated into both the post office and the bulletin board form of messaging systems. Thread functionality attempts to present to users a set of exchanged messages as a hierarchy of replies. Conventional thread mechanisms have proven so rudimentary that those who choose to engage in subject matter exchanges via conventional messaging systems soon find themselves burdened with an overwhelming number of clerical time-consuming message management tasks.
Electronic bulletin boards typically use threads for the explicit purpose of enabling subject matter exchanges among like-minded electronic communities. With the lack of direct addressing inherent to the bulletin board model of communication, subject matter exchanges often take on a laissez-faire quality that is less than optimal in most workplaces. That is to say that in the workplace, subject matter experts need to directly address who they want to get involved in goal-driven subject matter exchanges—exchanges where two or more parties draw upon each other's subject matter expertise long enough to produce the know-how needed to accomplish a goal or an aspect of a goal.
Conventional electronic mail systems also incorporate thread functionality, and support direct addressing by default. However, to overcome content distribution and addressing challenges, workplace email users rely heavily on distribution lists. As a result, threading with email and extensions for mailing list distribution capabilities take away the direct addressing capability leading to the same laissez-faire qualities of the bulletin board model.
While the notion of threads as a means to preserve context appears to be fundamental to subject matter exchanges, the mechanisms used to realize threading fail to preserve the integrity of the structure of a subject matter exchange. Consequently, in the workplace as subject matter experts primarily rely on email to conduct subject matter exchanges they find themselves also frequently taking on clerical message management tasks: 1) sorting (clustering) messages according to the subject matter exchanges they belong to; and 2) attempting to put the message back into the conversational context (ordering) of the subject matter exchange.
Conventional thread mechanisms in messaging systems are too rudimentary for subject matter exchanges. Notably conventional thread mechanisms are implemented as merely an extension of the message construct. A survey of the prior art illustrates how even those that attempt to address the failings of threads fall into the same trap.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,905,863 (Knowles) teaches that the use of the In-Reply-To field of a conventional email message to construct a message thread is unreliable. Further still, Knowles teaches away from reliance on user inserted structural information to construct threads. Instead, Knowles teaches re-constructing a message thread (automatically) using textual context and characteristics of messages.
In an article entitled “Using Collaborative Filtering To Weave An Information Tapestry”, Communications of the ACM, December 1992, Vol. 35, No. 12, p 61–70, David Goldberg discloses an email system which filters (scans) email messages, selects interesting messages and places them in a user's inbox. The email system uses both content based filtering and collaborative filtering. Notably, the system provides the ability to annotate documents in support of moderated newsgroups, and select documents replied to by a given user. The system includes an indexer which reads documents, a document store, an annotation store, a filterer, a document queue (one for each user), and a remailer for periodically forwarding the contents of the document queue to the user via email. The system does not thread documents, but rather provides a framework for storing documents and a query language for interrogating the stored documents to retrieve documents containing desired keywords.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,165 (Narasimhan) shows a system for filtering email messages based on user defined filters which forwards select messages to a user's receiver. The system scans email messages to create filtered messages which are forwarded to a device such as a pager used to page a user when a selected email message (determined by filter) arrives.
As evident from the above-listed prior art survey, conventional messaging systems treat threads as a post-processing task from a list of currently available messages. The quality of the produced view relies on the completeness of the available content, i.e. whether the messaging client has access to all the messages, and on the correctness of the available message headers. Hence, the ability of a user to leverage the thread as a means to contribute to the exchange is dramatically impacted by an overburdening process of ensuring access to an accurate and up-to-date view of the exchange.
To overcome such deficiencies, a distinct facility responsible for the thread mechanism is needed to ensure that the structure is accurately maintained as the exchange carries on contribution by contribution.
Furthermore, it is important to observe that the referential information available in conventional message headers only provides relationship information on how a message is a reply to another message and possibly how a message references other messages. This referential information does not suffice in exactly describing the spatial and temporal relationships required to preserve the structural integrity of a subject-matter exchange as well as other relationships representative of user intents while contributing or participating to an exchange. Such complex set of relationships can only be achieved via a coordinate system that preserves the temporal and spatial order of contributions and represents the structure of a subject-matter exchange as a unique construct independent of the content.
Conventional communications systems have fundamentally overlooked the notion that the subject matter exchange and the thread are synonymous and inextricably bound and yet separate and distinct from the subject matter contributed. The inventors of the present invention have learned that preserving the integrity of a subject matter exchange by way of a thread structure requires promoting the thread to an entity in its own right with its own unique identifier. Specifically, in this advanced form the “threading entity” assigns each message its own universal resource identifier (URI). The threading entity ensures that each contribution maintains not just its own identifier but also maintains a reference to the threading entity by recording the entity unique resource identifier so to provide a means to access the structural information in complete detail.
The approach disclosed and claimed herein enables users to trace the flow of an entire subject matter exchange from any point to any point. As used throughout the specification, the advanced notion of a thread is referred to as a dialog. A dialog is synonymous for a subject matter exchange. Each dialog is provided with a universal resource identifier (URI) which may be used to archive, retrieve, and categorize entire subject matter exchanges. The dialog concept and the use of a URI enables the active capture of subject matter exchanges as they occur.
The approach disclosed herein incorporates direct addressing to support goal-driven subject matter exchanges. Notably, the approach blends aspects of the post office model of communication with aspects of the bulletin board model of communication to create an automatic and implicit access control where any party directly addressed during any point of a subject matter exchange gains full access to the entire exchange. Finally, the dialog structuring mechanism captures structural information of the subject matter exchange in detail. As a result, terminal and branch points of the subject matter exchange can be quickly identified providing users with the ability to selectively monitor a more narrow portion of any particular subject matter exchange.
Accordingly, a first object of the present invention is to provide an improved communication system which is fully compatible with conventional messaging systems, and which enables users to conduct subject matter exchanges without manually clustering and ordering each contribution to the exchange.
More particularly, an object of the present invention is to provide a dialog facilitation system that represents and preserves the structural integrity of each subject matter exchange.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a dialog facilitation system which enables users to simultaneously monitor multiple subject matter exchanges.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a dialog facilitation system, which enables users to select the subject matter exchanges and the aspects of subject matter exchanges that they would like to monitor.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a dialog facilitation system, which enables users to search and retrieve an entire subject matter exchange and fully trace the exchange contribution-by-contribution.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a dialog facilitation system, which enables users to apply tags, either at the level ranging from the subject matter exchange itself or at the level of a contribution to the exchange, for the purpose of categorizing and archiving.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a dialog facilitation system, which enables users to share a subject matter exchange, or parts thereof, with others who were not participants to the exchange.